As I push through the back doors and shout for someone to grab my phone, I hear her laughing into my shoulder.
“Knox Knightly,” she says breathlessly, “you are so dramatic.”
“Yeah,” I mutter, kissing her forehead as I jerk open the car door. “But I show up when it counts.”
And tonight?
Tonight I’m showing up for the biggest moment of our lives.
Ready or not.
The delivery room is chaos.
Not the kind I’m used to, no roaring crowds, no kitchen fires or midnight plumbing disasters at The Marrow, but the kind that crackles with urgency and sweat and the kind of emotions you don’t even have names for.
It’s doctors and nurses, and bright lights. It’s Josie gripping my hand so tightly that I lose feeling in my fingers. It’s me trying to stay calm even as my heart hammers like I’m back on the line of scrimmage with three seconds left on the clock.
And then…
Crying.
One thin, furious wail, followed by another, louder and slightly off-key.
Twins.
Two.
Both.
I didn’t even know you could cry from relief and wonder and exhaustion all at once, but here I am, completely undone as I stare down at two tiny, wriggling miracles.
A boy and a girl.
Perfect. Screaming. Real.
Josie is pale and beautiful and glowing in a way only she could pull off while sweaty and exhausted and swearing under her breath. She looks at me with glassy eyes and a trembling smile.
“We did it,” she whispers hoarsely, both babies wailing on her chest as the nurses work to clean them off.
“We did it,” I echo, kissing her temple and brushing a curl from her damp forehead. “You were amazing.”
She closes her eyes, breathes deeply, and then looks down to where the nurses are swaddling the babies. “Can I hold them?”
“Hell yes, you can hold them.”
They hand them to me, two impossibly small bundles that somehow hold the whole universe inside.
The girl has dark hair and a frown like she’s already unimpressed with the world. The boy’s face is squished, and he keeps kicking like he’s still trying to run a touchdown in utero.
I stare at them both, stunned.
“We have to name them,” Josie murmurs.
I nod, completely blank for a second, because nothing feels big enough, worthy enough. But then Josie speaks again, quiet and sure.
“I want to name her Sage.”
“Sage,” I repeat. “Yeah. I like that.”
